I have always been a nature lover. Nature gives me an extraordinary feeling because of the spiritual and aesthetic energy that nature has. Therefore, I love walking among trees, herbs, flowers, creeks, and rivers. One of the places where one can experience the beauty of nature in a city are parks; parks are, actually, one of the places that I love visiting the most among other recreational and entertaining places. Thus, I was interested to volunteer at Avery Park.
I have visited Avery Park, in the summer, which is the bloom season for roses, with my family who were visiting me here in Corvallis coming from my hometown. I found it a very nice place that is maintained in an attractive and bright way. However, I was wondering why there was no one besides me and my family visiting the park on that day.
Before going there for the sake of volunteering, I thought that volunteering there will be, for sure, a very good opportunity to explore how parks are maintained and developed here in Corvallis. Surprisingly, they are, as I was informed, mainly maintained by volunteers. This is a really nice fact that made me feel that I’m doing something that an organization depends on. Therefore, volunteering there at Avery Park seemed to be different than the volunteering experiences that we have done before. In addition, what also made this volunteering experience different is that it is a place that I have visited before, so I knew before going where I was going to volunteer. However, what I was not sure about was what exactly the duties that we should do there are. Whatever duty they will assign us, I said to myself, I hope it will have something to do with the park itself; I mean the roses, herbs, and trees.
I think that choosing Avery Park as the volunteering place to begin our new session with was a very good decision from our instructor, Dr. Cate. It is a park that is full of beauty that makes us enthusiastic to work.
Volunteering there was an experience that will stay in my mind. Although I have visited Avery Park before, this visit was different because we had the chance to help the city of Corvallis parks and recreation department to maintain one of the parks they are responsible for by volunteering there. We also did a service to the community as whole because Avery Park is considered as a public facility which everyone can visit and explore its unique beauty.
The time that Dr. Cate chose to be the visit date was also great because it was in May, which is the month when roses begin to bloom. Therefore, we enjoyed seeing the blossom of roses with their perfume. However, the weather wasn’t that good, because it was a sunny and kind of hot day and I was fasting, so I was really tired when finishing our visit.
We began with a brief introduction about the duties that we were going to do and some facts about Avery Park and people who volunteer their given by a man whom I forgot his name. He assigned me and my group to be responsible for mulching as much flower beds as we could. It was a nice job, but it was quite exhausting. Nonetheless, I liked it due to several elements. Firstly, my group was awesome and we were having funny chats during working. Secondly, it was nice to work at a beautiful place even though the weather did not help, but it was, of course, better than a rainy day because otherwise we will not be able to work while it’s raining.
Ayman Aljishi
Qatif, Saudi Arabia